Alred swiped a little doll off the table and stuffed it into his armpit.
“What? Business, I assure you.”
Cynan forced out a nervous laugh. “In fact, I wasn’t looking at the doll. I saw the sword and I thought – ” He smiled stupidly. “ – perhaps you had some idea what I wanted to talk about.”
“Oh, that!” Alred laughed and tossed the doll down atop the other toys piled on the rug. “I should be ashamed to reveal myself so lacking in subtlety! But you aren’t far off.”
He lifted the empty scabbard and held it out ceremoniously for Cynan’s inspection.
“I just had it ornamented by our young, unmarried, well-proportioned, and stubbornly shirtless silversmith. Handsome work, is it not?”
The polished silver fittings shone like mirrors, but their curved surfaces distorted Cynan’s face into myriad bulging-eyed monstrosities. He stammered, “Ah… y-yes, my lord.”
Alred slapped the filigreed point against his palm and laid the scabbard back on the table. “He is an excellent craftsman, I shall grant him that. He has not yet disappointed. However, given that my young, unmarried, and handsomely-portioned daughters traipse past and even into his shop on a regular schedule…”
He laughed wickedly and patted the naked blade of his sword.
“I believe I made my point,” he confided. “But the point was never intended for you, old man. The scabbard was only just delivered this morning, but I was obliged forthwith to send for the cobbler: I shall need new buckles fitted to my sword belt if they are to fit. The cobbler, however, is short, fat, ugly, and old, so no lesson was required on his account.”
He winked and tapped Cynan’s shoulder with the back of his hand. Cynan nearly managed to laugh.
Then Alred’s grin softened to an almost paternal smile. “Put yourself at ease, Cynan. I believe I know on what little matter you wished to speak with me, and I daresay no swords will be necessary.”
Cynan’s cheeks flared with warmth. He whispered, “You know?”
“I believe so. But I shall not presume to guess.” He waved Cynan gracefully towards one of the chairs that stood on the rug. “Will you have a seat? I pray you, disregard the toys.” He nudged a stuffed rabbit aside with his foot. “Purely business, I assure you.”
Cynan laughed and settled onto his chair. He might almost have said he was relaxed. It seemed this conversation would be far less awkward than he had anticipated.
Alred graciously waited until Cynan was seated before pulling up his own chair. He even offered an easy opening: “What can I do for you?”
Cynan launched straight into the introduction of his speech: businesslike, but oblique, as he had intended. “You may be aware, my lord, that the letter I received last evening was from Cearball.”
Alred bowed his head. “Since you admit that I may be aware of this fact, I shall admit that I am.”
“And you may have guessed that he wrote to inform me that he has found passage for us to Ireland, and invites me to join him at the coast without delay.”
Alred inclined his head again. “We had supposed it was either something of that nature, or an announcement of his own imminent return to Lothere. Thus he does not intend to return himself?”
His voice was light, but he fixed Cynan’s eyes in an unnerving stare. However, the Duke’s disdain for Cearball was not, Cynan reminded himself, transitive to Cearball’s unwilling traveling companion.
“No, he does not seem to allow for it. I am to meet him at Hwitsands before the end of the month.” He smiled and returned to his speech. “My lord, I am ashamed to say that, when I arrived here, I was in dread lest our visit last even half as long as it has. And now I regret being called away. I am exceedingly glad to have had this opportunity to meet my cousins.”
Alred nodded. “And I am exceedingly glad that they have had the opportunity to meet you. I have no family of my own – no cousins to offer them. They are thus necessarily richer for having known you.”
Cynan’s smile widened into real pleasure. The gentleman was behaving handsomely – one would have said he had studied his own role in advance, down to the last line.
Cynan continued with his own. “I am exceedingly sorry to part from them after so short a time. However, my affection for them is such, that I believe that no lengthier acquaintance could improve it.”
Alred chuckled. “And I doubt not my children would say the same of you.”
Cynan raised a finger. “My affection, that is, for all but one of them.”
He smiled and paused. The cool urbanity of Alred’s expression was spoiled by a frown of his brow.
“My affection for one among them, it seems,” Cynan said, “may know no bounds, and a closer acquaintance could only make her more dear. I am speaking, you may divine, of my cousin Margaret.”
Alred’s eyes flew wide. “Margaret!”
Cynan settled back in his chair and got down to the point of his speech. “My mother and grandmother sent me to Lothere to meet my lady cousins and to judge whether one might – with some training – suit me for a wife.” He smiled indulgently at his own folly. “I came expecting to be disappointed, and instead I must admit myself so impressed with Margaret’s elegance, her discernment, her good breeding, and her character that I feel I need not hesitate to ask for her hand. Now, I realize that this is not my family’s most glorious year – ”
“Margaret? You want to marry Margaret?”
Cynan laughed awkwardly. The Duke’s face was red; he looked frankly alarmed.
“I realize that it is perhaps impolite to ask for the younger sister’s hand before the elder is spoken for. But these are not Biblical times, my lord, and while Gwynn will surely make a delightful wife for some man, it is Margaret who possesses every quality that I desire in a consort – ”
“You want to marry my daughter?”
Cynan could hear Alred’s rapid panting. Something had gone wrong with his well-rehearsed speech.
“Yes, my lord… what did you suppose I wanted to ask you?”
“Money! Jupiter! I thought you meant to ask me for money!”
Cynan gasped in outrage. “Money!”
“I thought you needed money for your trip! And I was prepared to offer you whatever you asked! Jupiter!”
“Money! My lord, you do me an injustice! Much of the coin I spent in Lothere went to gifts for your own family! And shall I now come begging to you for coppers?”
Alred started to rise, but he immediately flopped down again and rubbed his nose in consternation. “No – no – forgive me, old man, but – a young gentlemen whom I suspect is about to take a trip, coming shame-faced to me, asking for a word in private – ”
“Shame-faced! I am ashamed of nothing!”
“No, no – awkward, then! Forgive me, my boy, but… Holy Mother Juno! How was I supposed to guess the truth? My Lady Margaret is eleven years old! Only last week she was this big, I swear it!”
He set his mouth in a stubborn line and held up an invisible something about the size of a loaf of bread.
Cynan wrinkled his nose. “I do not speak of an immediate marriage. I speak of a betrothal, naturally. And we need not determine the particulars at this time. Only an agreement in principle…”
“No!” Finally Alred bolted up from his chair and stalked into the center of the room, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched defensively.
“I beg your pardon?”
Alred whirled around, and Cynan cringed, thinking of the sword.
“Cynan! Cynan!” Alred pleaded. “Are you acquainted with your cousin at all? Are we even speaking of the same child? Margaret? Elegant? Well-bred? It was all I could do to restrain her from employing the saltiest of the Welsh insults she and my demented secretary dreamt up between them in your regard!”
Cynan knew that Margaret had simply saved them for the moments when she could insult him privately, but that would have required admitting he had sometimes sought her out when she was alone. His seeming taste for hearing himself insulted would have been difficult to explain.
He only ventured, “Her Welsh has much improved of late.”
Alred laughed in exasperation. “Cynan!”
“She is simply an exceedingly spirited young lady, but she is capable of reining herself in when required. Her elegance is innate. Her education is remarkable. She would be an ideal consort to a prince in troubled times, though I pray I may offer her a peaceful kingdom when the time comes. And the alliance would be exceedingly fitting. The great-granddaughter and the great-grandson of old Iago. And her possession of the old key is a remarkable story. Our people will rejoice to see the curse lifted.”
“The key! Holy Mother Juno!” Alred pointed accusingly at Cynan’s face. “Old man, you do realize she made up that curse story on the spot, don’t you?”
“Of course, but if it were true, what more logical than that she should speak it?”
“She made that part up too! Jupiter! If what you want is the key, then ask me for the key, but for the love of everything holy, don’t ask me for my daughter!”
Cynan frowned. “I do not want the key. I do not believe in fairy tales. What I want is to give hope and pride to my countrymen. We are an exceedingly poetic people.” He lifted his head high. “Only say the word, and by the summer, her name will be on the lips of every Welsh bard.”
Alred’s mouth twisted and frowned, but at last he recomposed the polite urbanity of his face, and he bowed. “I am not insensible to the compliment you pay my daughter. Nevertheless, I cannot say the word. I have already given that word to another.”
Cynan tensed with anger. He thought he knew, but he managed to ask calmly, “To whom?”
“To her mother.”
Cynan’s fists relaxed. He did not understand.
Alred turned and strolled almost into the center of the room, his head bowed. He stood for so long that Cynan began to wonder what he was staring at. Once again he had stopped just short of the pale floorboards that replaced the bloodstained wood ripped out three weeks ago. There was still not a smudge or a footprint upon them.
When Cynan’s gaze returned to Alred’s back, he saw the man’s shoulders rise and fall with deep breaths.
“On the night,” Alred began shakily, “on the very night of Margaret’s birth, her mother made me swear…”
He swallowed and stood straighter. Then he turned.
“She made me swear that her daughters would not be allowed to marry where they did not love or where they were not dearly loved in return. Still less that I betroth them without their own will and consent. No. Matilda’s daughters shall not marry until they are old enough to know their hearts, and so in love that they will beg me to give them away. Dunstan too has sworn, in the event I am no longer here to do it.”
Cynan scowled. “Love is a poor reason to marry, my lord. Marriage for love alone is folly. What remains when the love is no more?”
Alred stared at him and said nothing. Cynan tried another angle.
“Will you let the great-granddaughter of Iago marry some – some peasant’s son?” He glanced at the filigreed scabbard. “Or some tradesman?”
“I cannot say.” Alred’s voice was low and shaky but sharp, like a sword held in a weak hand. “I cannot say. I was so unworthy of her mother myself. If he loves her as I loved her mother… I cannot say.”
Cynan rocked himself nervously in his chair. Argument on this topic with this man seemed hopeless. Then he had another idea.
“And if she loves me? And I love her?”
Alred blinked at him as if coming awake. “You have your work cut out for you there, old man.”
“But in principle? You do not refuse me in principle?”
Alred hesitated. “I do not refuse you at all. I refuse to betroth my daughter to any man at this time.”
His voice was softening – the man was weakening. Cynan stood and pressed his point home.
“That will do for now, if you will make the same refusal to any man that asks. I am confident I shall win her when the time comes. Do I have your permission to correspond with her?”
The corners of Alred’s mouth lifted in a slight smile. “It would be hard of me to require you to make her love you and then deprive you of any means of doing so. But I tell you, old man, you have your work cut out for you. Gwynn might be won with pretty words, but my Lady Margaret…”
“Is too clever for such nonsense,” Cynan concluded for him.
Alred smiled and shook his head, but Cynan went on.
“Nor am I such a fool. I shall write to her on such subjects as may interest her. We shall have many in common, being cousins. And I should like her to practice her Welsh in her replies. She owes that much to her blood. Will you sometimes spare her the assistance of your ‘demented secretary,’ my lord?” Cynan smiled over his own condescension in making a crass joke.
Alred sighed. “Forgive me, old man, but I do still wonder how well you truly know Margaret. Nevertheless I shall loan her my secretary if his assistance is required. However, I fear her letters to you will be rather short once I will have made her expunge them of all their… shall we say… unpleasantries.”
Cynan considered this possibility. “No, don’t oblige her, I pray you. Let her write what she will. If she is given free rein to tease and insult me, it will turn the chore of replying into a much-anticipated pleasure.”
Alred snorted and finally laughed. “With that, I am obliged to concede that you are better acquainted with my daughter than I had realized.”
He's not the man to think ill of a girl because she can be won with pretty words. He just knows Cynan cannot possibly understand.
Chapters
Hmmm, interesting. Here I was, thinking that Matilda's wish about the girls' marriages was mainly Gwynn-centric. Granted, at the time she made that request, Meggie could've been a son for all she knew, but judging by Alred's sort of "wink wink nudge nudge" attitude toward Conrad and Meggie earlier... still, it's good to see that Meggie gets the same considerations.
With that line, I'm inclined to believe that Blocky knows about the suicide attempt, but I have to wonder how he might have found out. I can't imagine Meggie would have told him, but then again, we haven't seen much of Blocky, so maybe they're a lot closer than I realize. I'm sure Sigefrith would be pretty happy if that was the case.
And I know she had very little to do with this chapter, but I felt so bad for Gwynn here, and not because someone asked for her younger sister before asking for her. Blocky practically called her stupid--at least, in comparison to Meggie--and her own father didn't bother defending her at all. Her own father. Now, I can see where Blocky would get that idea, and obviously he can't see into Gwynn's head, and I do think Meggie and Gwynn are clever in different ways--Meggie in the more logical, practical way, the way that Blocky would notice. So Blocky's off the hook here. But with Alred's not defending Gwynn, plus his seeming acceptance of the fact that Meggie knows the "saltiest of Welsh insults", really makes me wonder about how Alred wants his daughters raised. Obviously, they're two very different people... but all-in-all, I have to wonder if Alred actually wants Gwynn to be--for lack of a better word--stupid. I know that's a harsh thing to say, but it seems to me that the most valuable thing a parent can give their child is knowledge, and from what I can see, Alred is, if not outright withholding that from Gwynn, at least denying her that in some way. and I can't understand why he would do that, especially considering that he doesn't treat his other children that way. The sons, yes, "the times"... but Meggie? He has no problem with eleven-year-old Meggie knowing the saltiest of Welsh insults, but thirteen-year-old Gwynn knowing where babies come from is absolutely out of the question? What the hell, Alred?
Seriously, I hope someone--Meggie, Dunstan, Yware, maybe even Finn--chews him out about that sometime soon.
Er... sorry about that. I'm in a bit of a ranty mood right now.